Time to go. All the thinking, planning, worrying and avoiding is over. I have to put bum to saddle now. Getting ready for the first day is complicated as I’m not quite sure what will happen, what I’ll need and so on, so it takes me until after 10 to get everything sorted.
I walk down to the lighthouse at Pointe St Mathieu with Helen for a photo opportunity as proof that I am at least on the starting line, then she wishes me luck and off I go. It’s a beautiful morning for cycling, dry light cloud, about 22deg and the only irritant is a steady if light headwind.
The lighthouse at Pointe St Mathieu
I take the coastal route through Plougonvelin, pause to enjoy the sun on the bay and then on up to the main road. That takes me to Brest, and there isn’t much choice as it follows the line of the coast quite closely. This is my first time to try and match the print of a Michelin map attached to my handlebars with the electronic map on my GPS unit. I realise that they do not match exactly, with different colour schemes and different philosophies about what roads to show, an inconsistency that will drive me bonkers over the days to come.
As I enter Brest cycle route signs start to appear, and they take down the littoral route, which runs down to the shoreline and then works its way into the city centre past the huge concrete shells of presumably WW2 installations. Brest itself was largely destroyed by bombing and its reconstruction has not been attractive, large, utilitarian blocks of flats everywhere and a strangely quiet centre. The signage disappears then reappears from time to time, so finding my way through the middle is pretty haphazard, but eventually I find my way on to the old bridge crossing the Elorn river at the end of the bay.
It’s now getting into the mid 20s, and I realise the hard cycling is beginning. South of Brest the coastline is indented by rivers, and for each one I climb up a hill and then drop down to another pretty little town with an old bridge over its own river. By about 3 I drop into Le Faou and am a bit surprised to hear bagpipes echoing up its old French streets. It turns out there is some historical pageant happening, and I guess that the pipes are a Breton version of what is presumably a traditional Celtic instrument. Then the longest climb of the day, 4 or 5 miles up to join the D21, which for quite a few miles follows a ridge offering glorious views of the valleys to north and south.
By now it is after 4 and I need to know where Helen has pitched camp with the van. A few hiccoughs over messaages sent/not sent, but I eventually receive and translate a What3Words message into a format that I can put into my GPS. Sadly still 20 miles to go, and I soon find that the topography is changing, with the road regularly plunging downhill to cross rivers and climbing up again to the next town on my plan. So it goes, with the legs getting ever heavier and the distance to go decreasing disappointingly slowly. I pass through several villages with people sitting outside bars, drinking cold beer, but I grit my teeth and pedal on. Eventually I seem to be at the farm where Helen has pitched camp, and a short glide down a side road shows me out van, Rosie, parked up with Helen sitting by it in the evening sun, reading.
What a relief. 58 miles, 4,200’ of climbing, but I’ve done it.
No comments:
Post a Comment